Konstantin Tereschenko confirmed his status as current EuroFormula Open championship favourite by taking his third victory of the season in the first race at Estoril.
The Russian driver, racing for Campos Racing, converted his pole position to take victory ahead of Yarin Stern, although the Israeli driver was promoted to that position when Vitor Baptista was handed a ten-second penalty for failing to slow down under a yellow flag after William Barbosa spun into the gravel trap.
Similar penalties handed out to Leonardo Pulcini, Antoni Ptak, Ahmad Al Ghanem, Diego Mencheca, John Simonyan and Alessio Rovera.
The top four of the race were close throughout the race, with Tereschenko holding off RP Motorsport’s Baptista, with Team West-Tec F3’s Stern and Emilio de Villota Motorsport’s Yu Kanamaru close behind. Kanamaru inherited the final podium spot due to Baptista’s penalty, with the Brazilian ending the race classified fourth.
Pulcini would have been fifth had it not been for his penalty, which left Tanart Sathienthirakul fifth for West-Tec ahead of Damiano Fioravanti, Igor Walilko and Andres Saravia of RP Motorsport, with Pulcini falling to ninth. Saravia lost a couple of places on the final lap after a spin whilst battling Sathienthirakul.
Mencheca’s penalty did not change his finishing position, with the Mexican racer finishing tenth for Campos Racing, although just 0.040s ahead of Russian debutant Alexey Chuklin of Corbetta Competizioni.
Tereschenko’s victory increases his championship lead over Vitor Baptista to eighteen points, with race two of the weekend in Portugal taking place on Sunday.
Estoril Race 1 Result
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